THE president who won the Nobel Peace Prize less than nine months after his inauguration has turned out to be one of the most militarily aggressive American leaders in decades.

Just ponder that: not only the Democratic Party, but
also its progressive faction, is wildly enamored of "one of the most
militarily aggressive American leaders in decades." That's quite
revealing on multiple levels. Bergen does note that irony: he recalls
that Obama used his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech to defend the
justifications for war and points out: "if those on the left were
listening, they didn't seem to care." He adds that "the left, which had
loudly condemned George W. Bush for waterboarding and due process
violations at Guanta'namo, was relatively quiet when the Obama
administration, acting as judge and executioner, ordered more than 250
drone strikes in Pakistan since 2009, during which at least 1,400 lives
were lost."

To explain the behavior of "the left," Bergen offers this theory:
"From both the right and left, there has been a continuing, dramatic cognitive disconnect between Mr. Obama's record and the public perception of his leadership: despite his demonstrated willingness to use force, neither side regards him as the warrior president he is."
In other words, progressives are slavishly supportive of "one of the
most militarily aggressive American leaders in decades" because they
have deluded themselves into denying this reality and continue to
pretend he's some sort of anti-war figure.

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That's not unreasonable speculation, but I ultimately don't believe
that's true. Leaving aside Bergen's over-generalization -- some factions
on "the left" have been quite vocal in condemning Obama's actions in
these areas -- most Democrats are perfectly aware of Obama's military
aggression. They don't support him despite that, but rather, that's one of the things they love about him. After years of being mocked by the Right as Terrorist-coddling weaklings, Obama -- strutting around touting his own strength
-- lets them feel strong and powerful in exactly the way that Bush and
Cheney's swaggering let conservatives prance around as tough-guy,
play-acting warriors. Rather than ignore this aggression, Democratic think tanks point
with beaming pride to the corpses piled up by the Democratic
Commander-in-Chief to argue that he's been such a resounding foreign
policy "success," while Democratic pundits celebrate and defend the political value of his majestic kills.

Yesterday on his MSNBC morning show, Chris Hayes conducted an excellent, two-part
discussion of Obama's escalated civilian-killing drone attacks, with a
heavy emphasis on the innocent people, including numerous children, who
have been killed. He showed a harrowing video clip of a Yemeni man's
anguish as he described the pregnant women and children killed by
Obama's 2009 cluster bomb strike; featured the U.S. drone killing of
16-year-old American citizen Abdulrahman Awlaki in Yemen; and
interviewed human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, who described the
16-year-old Pakistani boy he met at a meeting to discuss civilian drone
deaths and who, a mere three days later, had his own life ended by an American drone.

Later that day, Hayes tweeted this:
"A bit taken aback by the ugliness that drone conversation seems to
bring out in some people." What he meant was the avalanche of angry
Twitter attacks from steadfast Obama loyalists who gleefully defended
the drone program, mocked concerns over civilian deaths, and insisted
that he should not be covering such matters because they may harm Obama
in an election year (of course, it's not only the President's followers,
but, as Hayes noted, the President himself who is quite adept at finding humor in his drone attacks).

Contrary to Bergen's generous belief that progressives are deluding
themselves about Obama's militarism, many are fully aware of it and,
because it's a Democrat doing it, have become aggressively supportive of
it. That, without a doubt, will be one of Obama's most enduring
legacies: transforming these policies of excessive militarism, rampant
secrecy and civil liberties assaults from right-wing radicalism into robust bipartisan consensus
(try though they might, not even progressives will be able to turn
around and credibly pretend to object to such things the next time there
is a GOP President).

Now, there is one element of delusion to Democratic support for
Obama's militarism, and it plagues not only his most ardent supporters
but also Bergen's Op-Ed. Most Democratic praise for "Obama's foreign
policy successes" fails even to acknowledge, let alone condemn, the
thousands of innocent people whose lives have been extinguished by his
militarism. These deaths simply do not exist in their world. When you
force them to address it, they'll simply dismiss it away with the
military terminology first popularized by Timothy McVeigh (that's
just "collateral damage") and then quickly return to the Bush-era
mantra of mindlessly invoking the word "Terrorism" to justify whatever
violence the U.S. Government commits. They see themselves, and
especially their leader, as so righteous and noble that incidents like this and this and so many others
are blissfully kept far away from their consciousness because the
reality of what they support cannot be reconciled with their
self-perception; that, more than anything, is what explains the
bitterness directed at Hayes yesterday: he publicized facts which they
desperately prefer be hidden, not just from others but from themselves.

Glenn Greenwald is one of three co-founding editors of The Intercept. He is a journalist, constitutional lawyer, and author of four New York Times best-selling books on politics and law. His most recent book, No Place (more...)